Google was just issued a patent based on tying its rankings with email spam. While that patent shows what could be, rather than what will be, it reminds us that Google is always watching.
Two things I’ve never personally tied very closely are email marketing and rankings. Of course, I’ve understood that newsletters can inform possible linkers or social sharers of new resources on your site, and that may improve your site’s position. But past that, I hadn’t thought much about any possible association, until today.
Today, I discovered that just a few days ago, Google was issued a patent they filed on March 7, 2012. The patent, “Email spam and junk mail as a vendor reliability signal,” contains the abstract:
